After two succesful funding periods of the Exzellence Initiative, the Cluster of Excellence CECAD is happy to be invited to submit the full proposal for the Exzellence Strategy of the federal government and states. „We are...more

Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld has been conducting his research as a CECAD PI and leading his junior research group at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research since 2013. His studies are supported by the German Research...more

In the course of time the DNA accumulates more and more damage – aging is one of the results. The manifold effects of DNA damage have now been shown in unprecedented complexity. The study by scientists led by Björn Schumacher at...more

The skin is the primary barrier to the outside world and depends on the ability to repair and regenerate itself throughout life. Aging and aging-associated diseases are the primary risk factors for a decline in skin regenerative...more

Individual excellence is at the core of scientific progress and must be rewarded – that is why the University of Cologne awards Research Prizes to excellent researchers. This year, Prof. Thomas Langer of the Cluster of Excellence...more

EUROMIT is the most important scientific conference on mitochondrial disease research. This year’s meeting will take place in Cologne from 11 to 15 June.
A team of researchers headed by Aleksandra Trifunovic and Elena Rugarli...more

Researchers at the universities of Cologne and Bonn uncover the link between protein aggregation and aging
Not only does our way of life determine how long we live but so too does our genetic material. Of particular importance...more

Three Max Planck Scientists and members of CECAD will receive this year the highest personal award that the European Union can award to researchers. With this decision, the European Research Council (ERC) supports the...more

Autophagosomes are at the center of attention, at least since the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded for research on autophagy in 2016. The much talked about autophagosomes are small membrane vesicles in charge of waste...more

Without winning against aging diseases, Björn Schumacher, CECAD-PI and president of the German Association for Aging Research, sees no future for our society. Only when the health problems of an aging society are solved, the...more

Mitochondria are central metabolic organelles that regulate cell death pathways through releasing death-promoting proteins such as cytochrome c and Smac. The group of Thomas Langer has now found that the mitochondrial protease...more

A moderate reduction in food intake, known as dietary restriction, protects against multiple ageing-related diseases and extends life span, but can also supress growth and fertility. A research group from the Max Planck Institute...more

The bacterium Salmonella enterica causes gastroenteritis in humans and is one of the leading causes of food borne infectious diseases. Thereby, the germ is able to trick the immune system. Researchers from the Cluster of...more

Cells need to repair damaged DNA in our genes to prevent the development of cancer and other diseases. Our cells therefore activate and send “repair-proteins” to the damaged parts within the DNA. To do this, an elaborate protein...more

Why does obesity make us sick? What is the reaction of the brain to being overweight? A group of nerve cells in the brain is now suspected to contribute to impaired metabolism in obese mice. A team of researchers from CECAD and...more

Every seven semesters, German university professors have the chance to focus fully on their research – something that is not always easy in the everyday life of a university. Professor Thorsten Hoppe from CECAD, the Cluster of...more

Keeping Skin Cancer in Check: How the environment influences the tumor
Malignant melanoma is the fastest-growing type of cancer and the most fatal skin disease. Sandra Iden and her team at the Cluster of Excellence on Aging...more

New system could reduce number of animal experiments
Wounds need to heal and dead hairs need to be replaced. Responsible for this are the so-called hair follicle stem cells in our skin. These stem cells can mature into all the...more

The research group of Dr. Alvaro Rada-Iglesias (Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC) and CECAD, University of Cologne, Germany) has recently implemented a novel, simple and universal approach that enables the functional...more

Is there a way to live long and healthy? Which role do mitochondria play? In this recent article from the Kölner Stadtanzeiger, Rudolf Wiesner talks about the current state of science on aging. You can find a pdf in German here.more

With age, somatic cells such as neurons lose their ability to maintain the quality of their protein content. Pluripotent stem cells, on the contrary, do not age and have increased mechanism to maintain the integrity of their...more

The Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 829 “Molecular Mechanisms Regulating Skin Homeostasis” has successfully renewed its consortium and will receive a further four years of funding by the German Research Foundation...more

Cells can die in many ways. Apoptosis is a regulated cell death process that ensures the orderly disassembly and removal of the dying cell. Necroptosis is a more recently identified cell death pathway that results in the release...more

The skin is confronted with various environmental stimuli and exhibits a remarkable pool of stem cells and differentiated cells to face these challenges. A team of scientists based at CECAD in Cologne and led by Sandra Iden...more

The research team led by Sabine Eming, Dermatologist at the University Hospital of Cologne and Principal Investigator at the CMMC and CECAD Cologne, identified unique functions of target of rapamycin (TOR) signaling in skin...more

Diabetics often have to contend with wounds that heal poorly. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, the CMMC, the CECAD Excellence Cluster and the Institute of Genetics of the University of Cologne have...more

How does the aging body react to genome damage? With a better understanding of the the causes of aging, we could prevent aging associated diseases and live healthy longer. Björn Schumacher gives insights in the research here (in...more

One of the most important decisions a cell has to make is a matter of life and death: can damage be repaired or is it better to undergo cellular suicide to prevent further harm? In a cascade of a so far poorly understood...more

The Franz-Volhard-Prize awarded by the German Society of Nephrology is given to outstanding scientists working on kidney diseases. This year, Prof. Schermer was awarded for his research on the pathogenesis of cystic kidney...more

AAALAC International is a private, nonprofit organization that promotes the humane treatment of animals in science through voluntary accreditation and assessment programs. More than 950 companies, universities, hospitals,...more

CECAD and Emmy Noether Group leader Dr. Michael Lammers has been awarded a Heisenberg Fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG). Michael Lammers and his team explore how protein function can be regulated by diverse...more

As part of her summer tour "The future of growing old" the Federal Minister for Education and Research, Johanna Wanka, will visit selected research locations throughout Germany.
During her visit to the Max Planck...more

A team of scientists led by Sara Wickström, Principal Investigator at CECAD, the Cluster of Excellence in Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-associated Diseases at the University of Cologne, gained new insights into how stem...more

Mitochondria play an important role in cells for the production of energy. Latest findings suggest that their role is more complex than previously thought. Therefore, their physiological integration in the surrounding of cells is...more

On Monday, 30th of May 2016 Prof. Björn Schumacher, Principal Investigator at CECAD, Prof. Christiane Woopen, managing director of ceres and TV host Bettina Böttinger discussed with 200 participants what is important for an...more

His cancer research about KRAS-Genes (Kirsten Rat Sarcoma-Genes) was honored by the German Society for Internal Medicin (DGIM). The prize is endowed with 30.000€
DGIM´s press release can be found here.
Here´s a link to a recent...more

During the 2nd Cologne Ageing Conference the Deutsche Welle produced a new episode of the Spectrum-podcast. The results and the podcast "Spectrum: Fountain of youth - turning back the ageing clock" can be found here.more

On tuesday, 5th of April 2016 Björn Schumacher was interviewed for the german radio station SWR1. Topic of the talk was "On our way to a Methusalah-society? We have never been as old as today".
More information and a...more

In March of this year the junior scientists of CECAD again left Cologne for their fifth CECAD PhD/PostDoc retreat. This time, the retreat was in the beautiful Roman city of Trier, in Rhineland-Palatinate. Activities included two...more